Community Logging in the Rain Forest of West Kalimantan, Indonesia

by Harvard University Laboratory of Tropical Forest Ecology

Project Overview

Gunung Palung National Park (GPNP), a 90,000 ha national park in West Kalimantan, Indonesia, contains a complete gradient of tropical rain forest habitats ranging from mangrove forest through swamp and lowland forest up to montane and cloud forest on the top of Mt. Palung. The park also contains a full complement of vertebrates including proboscis monkeys, which are endemic to Borneo, and the largest population of orangutans on the island. The forests surrounding the park are rapidly becoming degraded. Major threats include corporate mechanized logging, conversion to agricultural uses, and legal and illegal hand logging by local villagers.

To counter these threats, the project will set up a small community managed and operated logging enterprise in a 5000 ha buffer zone area bordering GPNP. In the new enterprise, villagers will not only receive better wages for their work, but will also share in the value-added to the wood through a locally owned sawmill. The LTFE project, the first of its kind in Indonesia, also has enormous potential to affect policies regarding community resource management and forestry practices throughout the country.

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